TROPICS Vol. r(213),pp. 143-153 Issued December, 1991 Changes ln Economic Life of the Hunters and Gatherers : the Kelay Punan in East Kalimantan Makoto INoun Faculty of Agriculnre, University of Tokyo, l-1-l Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan LucnN Faculty of reaching and Education, Mulawarman University, Kampus Gunung Kelua, Samarinda, Kalimantan Timur, Indonesia Icrn Bilung Tiopical Rain Forest Research Center, Mulawarman University, Kampus Gunung Kelua, Samarinda, Kalimantan Timur, Indonesia Abstract : The Punan people in Bomeo island had traded forest products for the necessities of life with the Dayak people, who traded them with the brokers. At present, the Kelay Punan people in East Kalimantan rade directly with the brokers and merchants, who control the rade of the forest products from the region. They are degraded to debtors now and still carrying out hunting and gathering to pay back the debt" Besides, the inroduction of swidden cultivation is one of the most important factors to affect their life style. Their swidden system might not be so sustainable, since they were not tradirional swidden cultivators like the Kenyah Dayak people. Key Words: East Kalimantan / Punan / swidden cultivation / trade The "Punan" is a generic term for hunters and gatherers living in Borneo island. The Punan people have the same physical characteristics as the Dayaks practicing swidden cultivation, since the Punans are also the protd-Malayan people. The bodies of the Punans, however, are generally better-built than those of the Dayaks. According to Hoffman (1983), Bock's description of the Punan (Bock, 1881) is one of the earliest to appear in print. Bock described the Punan as "wild people of the woods" who were almost entirely isolated from all communication with the rest of the world, which has remained the basis of popular conception of the Punan ever since. According to Sellato (1988) and Brosius (1988), however, scientists had reponed the importance of uade in the life of the Punan. Traditionally the Punan people have met their subsistence needs by hunting wild game such as wild pigs, deers, and monkeys with blowpipes and spears, and by gathering wild sago, fruits, and honey. They form goups consisting of a few households and wander over the forest area. In fact, none of the groups has been fully economically self-sufficient (Hoffman, 1983). The Punan people have lived in symbiosis with the Dayaks through the trade relationship. The Punans bartered tusks and furs of wild pigs, leopards and bears; antlers of deers; rattan; and rattan mats for salt, tobacco, iron products, and cotton textiles which were possessed by the Dayaks. And the Dayaks traded with the Chinese and Malayan merchants. Especially, the ruling classes of the Kenyah Dayak people kept their authority or influence by means of monopolizing the right of such rrade with the Punan (Uchibori, 1987). Anyway, aloewood, hornbill ivories, bird nests, camphors, bees wax, rhinoceros horns, bezoar stones, etc. collected by the Punans entered Asian trade network controlled mainlv bv 1,44 Makoto INouE, LucaN & Icn{ Bilung Chinese merchants, through the hands of the Dayaks (Ave & King, 1986). After Hoffman's survey in 1980, however, the Punan people in Indonesian Borneo seems to have undergone drastic changes with the infiltration of monetary economy and introduc- tion of swidden cultivation. In this paper, prcsent economic life of the Kelay-Punan people will be described. METHODOLOGY Selection of the research sites We designed to carry out comparative studies on two villages of different economic stages: a hunting and gathering stage and a swidden stage. Almost all the Punan people, however, have already introduced swidden cultivation in East Kalimantan (Whittier, 1974). Therefore, Kelay district (Kecamatan Kelay) in Berau regency (Kabupaten Berau), which adjoins Kayan Hilir disrict (Kecamatan Kayan Hitir) in Bulungan regency (Kabupaten Bulungan) to the west and Muara Wahau district (Kecamatan Muara Wahau) in Kutai rcgency (Kabupaten Kutai) to the south, seemed to be the only suitable region as a research site because the Punan people who were still hunters and gatherers might have lived there. Although Guerreiro (1985) described the outline of the area, his data seems to have been collected not at the village but at the disnict office. This might be because the access to the villages was very difficult. There were no passengers boats from Tanjung Redeb, the seat of the regency office, to Kelay district, nor airstrips. The district seems to be one of the regions to which people need the longest time to have access in East Kalimantan. The district had thirteen villages (Figure 1) with a population of 2,416 in August, 1989. The population density was 0. 36 persons/km2. Thirty two percent of the population were of the Kelay-Punan tribe, which had formed six villages. Two villages were selected to be surveyed. One of them was a colony named Nahas Sebanung in Long Sului village located at the uppermost pan of the Kelay river, where the people made their living by hunting and gathoring. The other was a colony named Long Melay in l,ong Duhung village, where the people had been practicing swidden cultivation for more than 10 years. Field data collection The field survey was conducted from the beginning of August to the end of September, 1989. Items covered by the field survey were the land tenure system; land utilization patterns including the rotation systems, the techniques of swidden agriculture, work organization, the labor force, and labor and land productivities; the infiltration of the monetary economy including effects on the household economy and the mutual aid system in daily life; and the economic relationships with the other regions. To clarify these items, interviews with the inhabitants of the villages were undertaken. In Nahas Sebanung, we interviewed ten heads of households ; and all the twelve heads of the Punan households in Long Melay. We also measured the area of the swiddens in Long Melay in order to get as accurate data as possible. OUTLINE OF THE COLONIES Nahas Sebanung Nahas Sebanung is the name of a colony belonging to Long Sului village (Desa l,ong Sului). It takes six days up to Nahas Sebanung from Samarinda. There is an air line with everyday Changes in Economic Life of Punan r45 EAST KALIMANTAN BORNEO ISLAND SJ* Berau Regency East Kalimantan Kelay District 1 1 : Samarinda 2 : Tanjung Redeb 3 : Sambaliung N O lOlsn + To Taniung Redeb 1: Nahas Sebanung* (Long Sului village) 2: Long Ngikian* ( - ditto- ) 3: Long Pelay* (Long Pelay village) 4: Long Lamcin* (Long Lamcin village) 5: Long Buy* (Long Keluh village) 6: Long Melay* (Long Duhung village) 7: Long Gie ( -ditto- ) 8: Muara Lesan (Muara Lesan village) 9: Troyana Camp ( -ditto- ) 10: Merasa (Merasa village) cf) * : the Punan villages r : Other colonies or villages Fig. LMap of Kelay District showing the field sites. service from Samarinda, the capital city of East Kalimantan province, to Tanjung Redeb, the seat of the regency office. It takes one and a half hours to get to Tanjung Redeb by air from Samarinda. At Tanjung Redeb, a small boat with an outboard moror should be chartered to go up the Kelay river. And the boat might be changed a few times to Nahas Sebanung by way of Merasa, Troyana Camp, Muara Lesan, l,ong Melay and other punan villages. r46 Makoto INouE, LucnN & Icm Bilung The village is zoned with an annual rainfall of 3000-3500 mm and situated at about 270 m above the sea level. According to the land classification by the government, the forest near the river is classified as limited production forest ; the forest far from the river is classified as protection forest. The forest, however, has not been logged commercially yet. The colony named l,ong Sului had existed for a long time. It was, however, usually almost uninhabited because the Punan people did not return to the colony while they went into the forest. Before the independence of Indonesia, the Punan people in the region was ruIed by the Berau dynasty. The Punan people sometimes brought such kinds of forest products as aloe- wood and rattan to the palace located at Sambaliung by canoes. It took more than a month to make a round trip between Long Sului and Sambaliung adjacent to Tanjung Redeb. After the independence, some brokers began to come to the village to barter the necessi- ties of life for the forest prducts such as aloewood and rattan. The monetary economy was inrroduced as an Arabian merchant began to trade with them in the middle of the 1960s. Now he monopolizes the trade at Long Sului village and has an enormous influence over the inhabitants. He constructed several temporary houses for the inhabitants in March, 1989 at the place called Nahas Sebanung, Iocated a little more down part of the stream from Long Sului, which dangerous rapids hinder men from getting to. As a result, now, all of the inhabi- tants do not come to Long Sului but to Nahas Sebanung after collecting aloewood and rattan in the forest. The inhabitants go out from the forest four times a year, for the merchant visits the colony at that interval. And after getting the necessities of life, they "return" (not "go") to the forest. In August, 1989,253 people or 54 households were regarded to be the inhabitants of Nahas Sebanung. A missionary of KINGMI (Kemah Injil Gereja Masehi Indonesia), a Protestant denomination, wont into the Long Sului in 1986. All the inhabitants are now nomi- nal Protestants. They, however, do not have services and there are no church buildings now. There are no public facilities such as schools, clinics and shops at all. Fortunately when we got to the colony, there are some Punan people just coming out from the forest to trade with the merchant.